1. Technical Field
The present invention relates in general to a data processing and, in particular, to a method and system for the broadcast and presentation of audio and video data. Still more particularly, the present invention relates to a method and system for efficiently managing the storage of audio and video data in broadcast and presentation environments.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the audio and video broadcast industry, which includes conventional television and radio broadcasting as well as emerging multicast technology for broadcasting audio and video across communication networks, programming is generally established well in advance of actual broadcast. In such broadcast environments, each file, which may represent a television program or song, is typically loaded onto a disk drive according to a predetermined broadcast schedule and then deleted from the disk drive after all of the contents of the file have been broadcast.
A chief problem with these broadcast environments is the large amount of storage required to store audio and video files in digital format. For example, a typical audio file (e.g., a song) may require 5 Megabytes (MB) of storage, while a one hour television may require 2 Gigabytes (GB) of storage. Storing a significant amount of programming in advance of programming thus requires large disk drives, anywhere from 50 Gigabytes to over 1 Terabyte in size.
It should therefore be apparent that a method and system are needed for efficiently managing the storage of audio and video data in a broadcast environment.